Germanwings Flight 9525 Crashes in French Alps…Co-Pilot Responsible?
People all around the world were saddened to hear on Wednesday that Germanwings Flight 9525 crashed in the French Appalachian Mountains on Tuesday, March 24. The flight took off from Barcelona, Spain and was heading to Dusseldorf, Germany. One hundred and fifty people were killed in the tragic crash.
What makes this crash so significant is that this was not just any ordinary crash, because it seems that the one responsible for the crash was not a terrorist on board, but rather the co-pilot himself. According to CNN, 27-year-old co-pilot, Andreas Lubitz, wanted to destroy the plane on purpose.
These are no ordinary allegations.
As more information comes up, the more apparent the allegations appear. CNN reporters state that there was a time where the captain left the cockpit for a brief period, and when he came back the door was locked. Transponder data (wireless communications with an aircraft) shows that autopilot was “reprogrammed” during the flight by someone in the cockpit that sent the plane down from 38,000 feet to 100 feet.With Lubitz being the only person in the cockpit at that time, all signs point to him as the culprit. What’s more disturbing are the audio clips from the flight’s black box, in which screaming can be heard as well as sounds of the captain banging on the door trying to bust in.
After hearing the horrific details of Flight 9525’s crash, two questions come to mind: Who was Andreas Lubitz and what was his motive for doing this?
Andreas Lubitz enjoyed flying since he was a teenager, and decided to take his hobby and make it his career. Ever since 2008, Lubritz had been training to get all the certifications required to fly these planes. There was a point in his training where he took a “several month” break for “medical” reasons, but most Flight Schools claim that students normally take long breaks like Lubritz did. Finally, in Sept. 2013, Lubritz was hired by Lufthansa, the company that owns Germanwings. Lubritz had 630 hours of flight time under his belt at the time of the crash.
From what we can tell, Lubitz has no history of psychological issues and was “fully qualified to pilot [an] aircraft on his own,” said Marseille prosecutor Brian Robin. According to friends of Lubitz, he came from a good family and was a great guy. No one close to Lubitz saw this coming. Despite gathering all of this information, we still cannot answer the question of “why?” Why would a seemingly normal person with no previous mental illness decide to kill himself and 144 passengers? Should we consider him a terrorist?
It is very rare that we see plane crashes as significant as this. Is is also rare that we see plane crashes that result from the co-pilot being the man behind the crime, making this an extremely difficult pill to swallow. To all the families of the victims of Flight 9525, our thoughts are with you.
